3537 
.C92 L6 
1910 




Copyright W_ 






COPYRIGHT DEPOSnv 



THE LORELEI 

AND 

OTHER POEMS 
With Prose Settings 




TME LORELEI 



THE LORELEI 



AND 



OTHER POEMS 

With Prose Settings 



BY 



HENRY BROWNFIELD SCOTT 




Ich weiS9 iticht was soil es be- deaf-en 



ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

SAMUEL A. MARTIN 



THE WERNER COMPANY 

Akroa. O., and Pittsburgh, Pa. 
1910. 



««»f~J ^ 



•:? r -St n 

"^ «^ I 



If /^^ 



Copyright, 1910, by 

HENRY BROWNFIELD SCOTT. 

All rights reserved. 



MADE BY 
THE WBRNER COMPANY, AKKON, O., AND PITTSBURGH, PA 



'CLA273'^3e 



DEDICATION. 

TO ERASMUS WILSON. 

Helpin' fellers all he kin — 
'T 's the way 't 's al'a's been, 
Since I Ve knowed the good ol' 'Ras 
Wilson : Never tries t' pass, 
Cold 'n' glum, 's some folks do. 
Anybody in a stew 
'Bout a pester'n' thing ; but, right 
There *n' then, 'ith all his might. 
Helps t' clear away the cloud. 
Giminenters ! ain't I proud 
'At I know him, 'n' 'at he 
Likes t' help a feller?— Gee! 
Well, fer that, 'n' 'cause he 's took 
Pains t' help me 'ith this book — 
Though the honor may be slim — 
It I dedicate t' him. 



— 9 — 




INTRODUCTION. 

N LAUNCHING this volume on the Ocean of 
Literature, so to speak, I offer no excuse; but I 
wish to tell how I came to do so. Ever since I 
can remember, poetry has had a charm for me; 
and, as the years go by, my love of it grows 
stronger. When I was not more than three 
years old, my mother taught me a stanza of a 
poem she found in a church paper, called, I be- 
lieve, " The Millennial Harbinger." The stanza ran: 

" The glorious sun that rolls on high, 
The moon that lights the midnight sky, 
And every twinkling star we see 
Tell we owe our lives to Thee." 

Young as I was, the depth, and the sweep, and the 
rhythmic beauty of those four lines made a wonderful im- 
pression on me. We lived in the country where there were 
plenty of trees and flowers, and, consequently, many birds and 
insects. These appealed to me as keenly as the sun, moon and 
stars. At first my child brain was sorely puzzled over the 
first three words of the last line. I thought " tell we owe " 
was one word; and, while squinting my eyes that I might look 
at the sun, or watching the moon and the stars at night, I won- 
dered what " tellweowe " could mean. 

Perhaps that is the reason, being naturally of an inquisi- 
tive turn, I pondered so much over the stanza; also why I so 

— 11 — 



early formed a love for metrical selections, and a desire for 
creating them. Who can tell? For many years — more at least 
than I care to reckon — I have had to hustle to keep my head 
above water. Nevertheless, I have found time to indulge my- 
self the pleasure of putting into verse some of the thoughts and 
— yes, feelings, for to thoroughly enjoy thinking one must feel 
correspondingly — that have come to me. To say that no 
ulterior motive of publication prompted me to put my thoughts 
into measured lines, would be untrue. But many of the poems 
presented in this collection were written purely for my own 
enjoyment. And, in order to help the reader understand bet- 
ter what I have written, I shall tell how and why I wrote. This 
is not conventional; but — bother conventionalities!— when one 
wants to be understood. 

I have read, it may be, ten or a dozen translations of 
Heinrich Heine's beautiful German legend, ** Die Lorelei," 
none of which seems to me to have the true ring. This may be 
egotism ; but, whatever it is, I have it. Therefore, I determined 
to make a translation of the poem myself; and, having done 
so, showed it to a number of German scholars. They were 
so pleased with my translation that I decided to publish it for 
distribution among my friends. Then I found a lot of other 
matter I had written, off and on, as the years ran along, and, 
finding it not bad " copy," concluded to issue this volume. I 
am sort o' pleased with the collection, too, and my pleasure will 
be complete if the public receives it in the same spirit with 
which it is offered. 

THE AUTHOR. 
Pittsburgh, Pa., 1 910. 

— 12 — 



CONTENTS. 



• PAGE 

Dedication 9 

Introduction 11 

The Lorelei 19 

To A Brave Songster 25 

Dust of Years 31 

Pete, the Volunteer 37 

Ho, Dar ! You 'Rastus Johnsing ! 49 

Little-Boy-Len 65 

Tale of a Quaint Folk-Ballad 63 

Another Quaint Folk-Ballad Tale 71 

A Dream of Youth 77 

At the Ball 83 

Billy Barton's Wooing 87 

Wisdom Couplets 95 

Farewell — Not Au Revoir ! 99 

Metamorphoses 103 

The Candidate 109 

Here's to Old Pittsburgh ! 113 



— 18 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The Lorelei Frontispiece 

PAGE 

" The Earth Lies Stark and Drear " 25 

" Blind to the Fates I Kneel " 31 

" Hush ! Hark ! What Means That Awful Rending 
Boom?" 37 

" Little-Boy-Len, Disconsolate, 
Wonders and Grumbles at His Fate " 55 

" Lonely I Sigh for the Days That Are Fled — 
Days of the Loved Ones so Long Ago Dead " 77 

" At de Ol' F'ont Gate in de Ebentide " 87 

" They Marked How Swiftly Lifted She Her Head "... 103 



BALLADS. 

No More Am I a Blooming Maid 67 

It Rained a Mist 73 

Tak Yo' Ahm Ahway, Mistah Bahton ! 90 

— 15 — 



THE LORELEI. 



THE LORELEI. 

(Translated from Heinrich Heine's German poem, " Die Lorelei.") 

I know not the cause of my sorrow, 

Why gloom fills my eyes with tears ; 
A legend, in mem'ry, I borrow 

Out of the by-gone years. 
The air is cool, the light waneth. 

And peacefully flows the Rhine ; 
The loftiest hill-tops retaineth 

The evening's red sunshine. 

On the heights sits a lovely maiden — 

A virgin, wondrously fair; 
In bright gems and jewels beladen, 

She combeth her golden hair. 
She combs it with comb that is golden, 

And singeth a melody 
So direful, yet sweet, and so olden 

The waves list in ecstasy. 

The boatman, his tiny barque drifting 

The foam-hidden rocks among. 
In terror, his dazed eyes uplifting, 

Heeds naught save that magic song. 
I believe the boat and the master 

The waves swallowed up at last; 
And Lorelei wrought the disaster 

By the spell around her cast. 



19 




THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS, 

HERE is no song more lastingly and universally 
beloved by the Germans than " The Lorelei." 
Even in this country, scarcely a festive occasion 
of theirs passes without its being sung, all joining 
in with a zest that has thrilled me with an en- 
thusiasm akin to their own, every time I have heard them render 
it. Yet there is a greater charm to me in the way Heinrich 
Heine, the great German writer, tells the story of the legend, 
than in the mere song itself. 

While nearly everybody knows or has heard the song, 
there are comparatively few, so far as my experience goes, who 
know the legends concerning this siren. One of the most 
ancient, and that on which Heine based his poem, follows : 

Long years ago a wondrously beautiful maiden, a water 
nymph, thought to be an immortal, and one of the daughters 
of old Father Rhine, was believed to dwell, by day, in her 
coral-cave palace in the cool depths of the river, near St. 
Goar, and to sit on a gigantic rock close at hand in the evening 
singing such entrancing music that passing boatmen, whose ears 
caught the notes of her song, forgot time and place, and al- 
lowed their boats to be dashed to pieces on the sharp, jagged 
rocks in the salmon-basin whirlpool below, where they per- 
ished. 

Tradition accounts for but one mortal who made friends 
with the Lorelei. She, the legend tells, one evening saw a 
handsome young fisherman from Oberwesel bathing in the 
Rhine near her rock, and fell in love with him. Her love was 

— 20 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

ardently returned; and the youth, for weeks, met her at the 
riverside every night, spending delightful hours with her, drink- 
ing in her beauty and the spell of her enchanting music. Al- 
ways, when they parted, she pointed out to him where to cast 
his nets on the morrow ; and, by implicitly following her instruc- 
tions, he never went home with an empty creel. Jealousy, how- 
ever, finally wrought the young fisherman's destruction. The 
Lorelei, knowing the youth was loved by a pretty maiden of 
Oberwesel, in jealous frenzy, one night dragged him down to 
her coral palace that she might enjoy his companionship forever 
alone. 

But the siren is reported to have continued her nightly 
enchantments on her rock; and Count Ludwig, the only son 
of Prince Palatine, one evening drifted down the Rhine with 
the firm hope of catching sight of her. Darker grew the light 
and waters as the bed of the Rhine narrowed; but the count 
gave that no heed. Finally his eyes, which had long been 
fixed on the highest point of rocks, caught a glimpse of white 
drapery and golden hair, and his ears faint, sweet notes of the 
siren's direful, yet alluring song. The strains of the melody 
became more distinct, as the count drew nearer, and her mar- 
velous beauty more clearly portrayed as she bent over the edge 
of the rock and beckoned him to her. Spell-bound, the count 
and his boatmen paid no heed to their vessel, and it crashed 
into the rocks and sunk with all on board, only one man es- 
caping to tell of the cruel fate of the young count. 

Frantic with grief and thirsting for revenge, the count's 

— 21 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

father immediately issued orders for the siren's capture. A 
picked band of warriors eventually surrounded her on her rock, 
and bade her surrender. But, unannoyed, she continued 
crooning her song and combing her golden hair; then grace- 
fully waved her lovely arms, which act rooted the grim old 
warriors to their tracks, and rendered them incapable of utter- 
ing a sound. Calmly taking off her jewels, the Lorelei dropped 
them one by one over the edge of the cliff into the Rhine ; then 
whirled about in a mystic dance, muttering some weird chant, 
until the waters of the Rhine rose to her feet, and a chariot, 
drawn by white-maned steeds, was swept to her on a great, 
foam-crested wave. Springing into the car, the siren vanished 
over the cliff, into the river, which fell to its normal stage with 
the disappearance of the magical equipage. Since then the 
Lorelei has never been seen on the cliff, although boatmen and 
others, chancing to be in that neighborhood late at night, claim 
they have caught faint echoes of her sweet, bewitching song. 

It is impossible, of course, to translate into English rhyme 
the exact wording of Heine's immortal composition; but I be- 
lieve I have kept more closely to his versification of ** The 
Lorelei " than any other translator. His verse has a smooth- 
ness and a depth of feeling to it which seem to be lacking in the 
translations I have read, and which I have tried to preserve. 



22 — 



TO A BRAVE SONGSTER. 




The Earth Lies Stark and Drear 



TO A BRAVE SONGSTER. 

Mantled in shroud of driven snow 
The earth lies stark and drear; 

Yet brave and sweet you sing as though 
Summer and sun were here. 

Slowly the dawn creeps from her bed, 

Ghostly and chill and lone; 
But your clear matin swift is sped 

As lance by warrior thrown. 

Over the pulseless field and fen 

The cheery melody 
Ripples and wells to hill and glen, 

Echoing glad reply. 



— 25 — 




THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

Into the frozen sky you fling 

A laugh to Fate's decree — 
A tang of ardent Youth and Spring, 

And fairest imagery. 

Hail, little songster! I have been 

Fearful of Life's alarms; 
But you have taught me true, I ween. 

To sing in time of storms. 

HY do birds sing, children laugh, frogs croak. 
If] katy-dids chant, donkeys bray? The answer is 
told in one word — Nature. But for a bird to 
sing sweetly and cheerily when the earth is cov- 
ered with more than a foot of snow, and the 
thermometer near zero, strikes me as something heroic. Early 
one March morning I was the witness of just such brave heroism, 
which resulted in my composing ** To a Brave Songster." 

As a morning newspaper man, I had done begrudgingly, 
a turn of " late watch," that bane to most newspaper fellows' 
existence ; and was on my way home. The month of February 
and the early part of March had been unusually mild; but 
during the night in question, it turned very cold, and snowed 
hard for eight or ten hours. It was one of those powdered- 
sugar kind of snows, and drifts were plentiful everywhere. I 
live a considerable distance from the car-line; and, having had 
to wade through unbroken oceans of that freezing snow, it 
seemed to me, ere I reached my yard-gate, I was about as blue 

— 26 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

as possible when I arrived there. Imagine my surprise, there- 
fore, when a bird, perched on the topmost Hmb of a tall tree 
in front of my door, burst into one of the cheeriest, sweetest 
bird-songs I have ever heard. 

Knee-deep in the snow and numb with cold, I stood there, 
stock still, listening to that bird's melodious matin. The warm 
w^eather must have lured him North before his usual migration 
period. However that may be, he was there, and singing away 
as merrily as though it were June. It was just breaking day, the 
v/ind had gone down to a calm, and his voice poured out clear, 
with a ring to it that echoed far and wide. He sang two or 
three minutes; then flew away, taking a Southerly direction, 
probably on his way to a warm latitude, there to remain until 
Spring got back in earnest. I am not well enough versed in 
bird lore to say what his class is ornithologically, probably of 
the thrush genus ; but at any rate he was a dandy singer. 

Well, the little rascal's daring cheeriness made me feel 
ashamed of the grouch I was carrying; and before I went to 
bed that morning, I wrote the accompanying ode — or whatever 
it may be — to him, both as a relief to the feelings the song 
had inspired, and a tribute to the courage of the songster. 



— 27 — 



DUST OF YEARS. 




"Blind to The Fates I Kneel 



DUST OF YEARS. 

Deep in a mystic wood 

I have digged me a grave 
Mid rarest solitude 

That man may crave. 

Mine is the grief to bear, 

And mine the miser's greed — 
Spurning the thought to share, 

The eye to read. 

Softly the twilight falls. 
. A subtile minstrelsy 
Wakes in my heart and calls: 
" Death cannot free ! " 

So, to my grave I steal, 

Martyr to Dust of Years ; 
Blind to the Fates I kneel, 

Nor chide my tears. 

SYCHIC matters have never been of more than 
passing interest to me except as regards their rela- 
tion to telepathy and mesmerism. The art of 
mesmerism, or animal magnetism, is applied, to a 
greater or less degree, daily in every walk of life. 
Telepathy, how^ever, while perhaps a more powerful agent than 
magnetism, because it may be transmitted across oceans and 
continents, is only occasionally recognized and understood. 

— 31 — 




THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

I believe telepathy was responsible for my writing the lines 
entitled, ** Dust of Years." Here are the circumstances; and 
the reader may draw his or her own conclusion : 

Back in 1 893, a young man of delicate constitution, but of 
brilliant mind, and I roomed together. We were both engaged 
on morning newspaper work, and usually went home about the 
same time. Our room was a double affair, his bed standing in 
a sort of alcove ; but he would sit with me at my fire — its being 
Winter and a cold one, too — often until after daybreak, while 
we talked and smoked. He had traveled much and was ex- 
ceedingly well read, and it was a rare treat to listen to him. 

Although of dark, sallow complexion, he was a good- 
looking fellow. His eyes were black and brilliant, his hair and 
mustache, dark, thick and glossy, with sprinkles of gray; his 
hands and feet, small and shapely. He had a low, musical 
voice, and his manner was always pleasant. I did not learn his 
age, but I would say it was about twenty-seven; and I think 
he was a married man. Somehow we never discussed our ages 
nor family affairs. 

After we had roomed together about three months, I got 
home about two o'clock one morning, and found him packing 
his trunk. Having completed the task, he came and sat by my 
fire as usual. 

" I am going to San Francisco," said he, in answer to my 
inquiries. ** I have a good offer on the Chronicle there, and 
will leave for the Coast to-day." 

— 32 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS, 

I was truly sorry to have him leave, and told him so. He 
thanked me in his modest, easy way, and sat gazing silently 
at the fire for a long time. Finally he turned to me and said: 

** Do you know that for a man who has as wide acquaint- 
ance as I, I have fewer real, close friends than any other man 
living? And the uncanny part of the matter, it may be to you, 
is that I am satisfied with such state of affairs. FU tell you why : 
In the first place, I am a confirmed fatalist. And, secondly, I 
am what the world calls a pessimist. In reality, though, I am 
an optimist. I am absolutely satisfied with what this life has 
given me, although there may not be another person in a million 
who would be.'* 

Being accustomed to let him talk without interruption, I 
made no comment ; and he went on : 

** You have never asked me anything about my personal 
affairs, and I have volunteered no information along those lines. 
I am glad you have not, for I wouldn't have told you ; and that 
might have caused us to part bad friends. There has been 
nothing in my life that I need be ashamed of, except I have not 
been of any use, to speak of, to the world in general. I have 
been nothing but a rover and a dreamer. I do newspaper work 
simply to earn money to live on. I have ambition neither for 
fame nor riches. All I care for is enough to meet my ex- 
penses comfortably. I don't like the beastly climate of Pitts- 
burgh, and I'm going to sunny California for the rest of my 
days, which I am sure will not be of any great length." 

** I hope you have no organic ailment " I began, when 

he waived the question aside impatiently. 

— 33 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

" Nothing to speak of," he said; ** but people of my tem- 
perament have not long lives. Besides, my people are not 
noted for extreme longevity. But what I have been trying to 
tell you — and I don't know why I want to tell you either — 
is,'* and he turned and looked at me fixedly, his eyes soft and 
dreamy: ** I have a sorrow that is all my own. It is to me a 
sweet, unsharable sorrow; one which I love to steal away to as 
a mother loves to steal to the grave of her dead child. Perhaps 
you cannot understand — but my grief has the effect on my heart 
of a sweet, sad chord of music. My sorrow is a sort of Dust 
of Years' consequence; and I, like a martyr, blindly kneel to 
the Fates; nor do I chide what few real tears I let fall." 

My friend left that morning while I was asleep in bed, and 
I never saw him again. Nor did I have any letter from, nor 
word concerning him, until I believe he sent me a telepathic 
message about a year after he left Pittsburgh. I had changed 
my rooming-place to a house about a mile from where he and 
I had been located, and was sitting before the fire at three 
o'clock one morning. Suddenly, I thought of him and what he 
had said to me the morning he left for San Francisco. Possibly 
his precise words were repeated in my brain; and I could see 
him in my mind's eye, and hear his voice in my mind's ear — the 
mind has ears as well as eyes, has it not? — as plainly as though 
he had been sitting there beside me. 

It was then I wrote the poem, ** Dust of Years." Next 
day I read in the papers that my friend had committed suicide 
in a San Francisco hotel, on the very morning and at the time — 
longitude considered — that I seemed to hear and see him in my 
room. 

— 34 — 



PETE. THE VOLUNTEER. 




"Hush! Hark! What Means That Awful Rending Boom? " 

PETE, THE VOLUNTEER. 

Tall as the steeple of a church it stood 

A great square structure wrought of brick and wood. 

Workmen had hurried with heroic zeal 

Day after day to meet the stern appeal 

The foreman made : " We must complete on time 

This job, no matter how the mortar-lime 

May set. . . . For quick result is all we ask," 

He said ; and each bent firmly to his task. 

Thus had a dozen stories quickly grown 

Into a many- windowed shaft — alone. 

Grim and colossal, with proud head and high 

Above its neighbors nestling lowly nigh. . . . 

The time was Winter ; and a raging blast 

The Storm King down upon that building cast. 

While scores of hardy toilers calmly ate 

Their noon-day meals, all unaware that Fate, 



37 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

With swift, relentless mien, had sealed their doom. 

Hark! Hush! What means that awful rending boom? 

What monstrous force is twisting walls and beams 

Of that great structure? . . . Hear the screams 

Of agony amid the horrid crash 

Of falling debris, and the winds that lash 

And shriek like fiends ! . . . From top to corner-stone, 

Alas ! there lies the building wrecked and prone ! . . . 

Hour after hour and far into the night 
Men stout of heart — accustomed to the sight 
Of tortured living and of mangled dead — 
Heave stone and brick until that wreckage dread 
Has yielded nigh to fifty ghastly corse. . . . 
" Who'll volunteer," above the tumult roars 
A trumpet voice, " to risk his life to save 
That of a child ? Is there one here so brave ? " 

Crushed in a cellar doorway 'neath a plank. 

Alive, but almost choked with dust and rank, 

Abhorrent odors, helpless lies a boy. 

Blue-eyed and fair — a mother's princely joy. 

Though racked with pain and cold, the child gives cheer 

To those who fain would rescue him. . . . But near — 

Aye, all too near above him ! — looms a tall, 

Huge mass of beetling and unstable wall. 

— 38 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS, 

And weighted by that mass, the beam which felled 
The boy — and like a vise of steel has held 
Him there, so wedged beyond relief that men 
Half crazed with grief and pity long have been — 
Must be removed, ere to his mother's breast. 
In frantic bliss, her offspring may be pressed. . . . 
" Who'll take this saw and cut that plank in twain ? " 
Rings loud and far that trumpet voice again. 

But all stand dumb; for swift and frightful death 

It seems to do the deed. A touch, a breath 

Might cause the avalanche of brick to crash 

Precipitately on the one so rash. 

A silence, painful, strained and full of gloom, 

Falls o'er the scene. ..." Must that hole be the tomb 

Of this poor boy? For shame! " the trumpet wails, 

While hearts respond ; but fear each bosom quails. 

Moments are fleeting, and the calls below 
Have dwindled to but whispers weak and slow ; 
And sobs of rough men join that mother's wild, 
Imploring cry that she may save her child. 
Hands kind though firm are holding her away, 
And gentle Sisters plead with her to pray. . . . 
*' For there is naught else now that we can do — 
God's will be done ; His grace be unto you ! " 

— 39 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

Ha ! From the crowd — all weary, sore and soiled, 
For with the rescue gangs he long has toiled — 
Comes a lone fireman. (Pete, a " Sub," is he, 
Known round the engine-houses as a free, 
Good-natured wight, with scarce a thought so grand 
An act as this would fall unto his hand.) 
*' Give me that saw," he said, and at him gazed 
The man who held it — for all thought him crazed 

Who thus would banter Death — " the hoy Fll save 
Or perish with him!" . . . Hear the people rave, 
Half mad with joy ! Breathless and tense they hung 
While calmly wrought this man, though o'er him hung 
That direful mass of peril. Now they see 
The child is safe. . . . Ah ! can there ever be 
Enough of glory — has this world renown 
Sufficient to such worthy heroes crown ? 

|ERO worship is not a strong characteristic of mine. 
It never was, even as a boy. It appears to me 
that most so-called heroes, while they have un- 
doubtedly accomplished valliant deeds, have been 
inspired mainly by a thirst for vaingloriousness. 
That, however, has not kept me from being an ardent admirer 
of brave acts, for love of approbation is a mighty good asset in 
one's make-up, if held in reasonable bounds. 

— 40 — 




THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

In looking over some old newspaper clippings the other 
day, I ran across some describing the horrible Willey — or 
Weldin — building disaster, of January, 1 889, in which nearly 
fifty lives were lost. One of the clippings tells of the rescue 
of a small boy by Peter Snyder, a Sub-Fireman, at the perilous 
risk of his own life. I was an eye-witness to that daring rescue, 
and a few days after the event, started to write the poem, 
** Pete, the Volunteer ** ; but, having taken sick at that time, 
and in consequence compelled to lie very ill of typhoid fever 
in a hospital for seven weeks, the completion of the composi- 
tion has been put off until now. 

The disaster was one of the worst in the history of Pitts- 
burgh. I was " subbing " on the old Pittsburgh Times, but 
that afternoon and until nearly daylight the next morning, made 
considerably more than a " full hand," you may be assured. 
I was rooming on the South Side, and, chancing to go over 
early that afternoon, was crossing the Smithfield Street Bridge, 
in a street car, when the storm struck the Willey — or Weldin — 
building (it was called both), and Hterally twisted it to pieces. 
The structure was about twelve stories in height, and had been 
run up so hurriedly that the mortar in the brick walls had not 
time to properly set, so that the storm — a sort of young cyclone 
— swooped and swirled into the top of the building, which was 
open, twisting it with the apparent ease a child might a toy, 
completely wrecking the great structure from top to bottom, 
piling it into a ragged mass at the base, and crushing the low 
buildings clustered about as though they were egg shells. More 
than sixty workmen were in the big building, quietly eating 

— 41 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

their dinners on the several floors, when the appaUing catas- 
trophe occurred ; and with scarcely a moment's warning, scores 
of lives were destroyed as would an avalanche a party of moun- 
tain climbers in the Alps. 

It was my first ** big '* assignment, and was, I can tell 
you, plenty big enough to satisfy even my then morbid desire 
for assignments that had " hair curlers " in them. Charley 
Dawson, now long dead, was Acting City Editor of The 
Times. He saw me getting off the car and hurried me down 
to the scene of the disaster. Its being nearly an hour before 
the regular time for the reporters to show up for afternoon 
assignments, I was the first of The Times force to reach the 
place of the accident. The police had already established a 
guard-line, and, having no press-badge, I had considerable 
difficulty in getting through; but a policeman who knew me 
finally let me pass, grumbling the while about reporters' care- 
lessness in losing their badges. 

Perhaps I was supersensitive — am still, for that matter — 
but, at any rate, I felt much of the extreme horror of that 
catastrophe before I even had caught a glimpse of its dire re- 
sults. It made me feel sick and weak-kneed for a bit; but I 
soon pulled myself together, and by the time I had pushed 
my way through the dense crowds, and was safely through 
the guard-line, I was ready for anything. 

Then I pitched in to find out all possible about the dis- 
aster — what caused it, how many and who were injured, and 
every wherefore the story might develop. And a strenuous 
time of it I had, too, until after five o'clock the next morning. 

— 42 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

Every hour or so I reported to Dawson, personally, in the 
office. What I had picked up, but which belonged to another 
man's part of our gigantic account printed in The Times the 
next morning, was turned over to that writer; what I had 
special, and which was considerable for a ** Cub," I wrote 
myself. 

Well, sometime during the night, just as I got back from 
a trip to the office, I heard a man, probably a Fire-Chief, shout 
through a trumpet: 

** Who'll volunteer to risk ^i^ ^if^ ^^ save a child? Is 
there anyone here brave enough to do that? " 

This, naturally, set me a-quiver with reportorial zeal ; and 
instantly I was all eyes and ears. Here would be a peach of 
a feature story, I thought. But my enthusiasm was short-lived. 
Just then George Welshones, The Times* star man, tapped me 
on the shoulder. 

** Let me take this, Scotty," he said; *' I want to feature 
it specially." 

Tired and hungry — for I had had little to eat that day — 
as I was, it hurt keenly to let another have that story. But I 
knew " St. George " (Welshones' pen-name) could do the 
story far better justice than I, and, with a sigh, said: ** All 
right, Mr. Welshones." 

But I witnessed that rescue, all the same. And it was 
dramatic in the extreme. The weather had grown very cold; 
lights in the hands of rescuers bobbed here and there among 
the wreckage strewn in all directions of the compass, while near 
a hole on the Wood street side, stood a group of men and a 

— 43 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS, 

few women, gazing alternately into the hole and at a tall chim- 
ney-like column of wall left standing a dozen or so feet to the 
North, and which seemed ready to fall directly into that hole 
at any moment. Six or eight feet down this excavation which 
the rescuers had made, lay a little blue-eyed, fair-haired boy, 
about twelve years old. He had stepped into the first floor of 
the building, presumably to look around, just as the destroying 
blast came, and been crushed through the floor into a doorway 
of the cellar. A heavy plank or beam of wood lay across the 
boy so wedging him down that he could not be got out until 
this obstacle was removed; and, as it was held firmly in place 
by the threatening portion of wall, there was only one way to 
get the child out — saw the plank. But who would perform 
that death-facing task? That rocking pillar of destruction 
made the bravest quail. Only the boy's broken-hearted little 
mother had volunteered; but a quartette of Sisters of Mercy 
held her back, knowing she could not saw that thick, hard 
board in two ; and pleaded with her to pray. 

The child had been fed warm milk and bouillon through 
a long tin tube reached down to him; and up to within a short 
time, had cheerily encouraged his mother and the rescuers, 
telling them he could hold out all right. But his voice had 
dwindled to whispers so soft and slow that it could scarcely be 
distinguished, and the fear was that he was dying. 

''Must the child die, in that foul hole?*' rang out that 
trumpet voice once more. ** Will no one cut that plank? 
Shame! Shame! " 

But not a man stirred a step toward the saw held by a big 

— 44 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

fireman. Not a voice was heard except that of the poor 
mother's pleading to be allowed to go to her boy. Rough 
men around me were sobbing, and my teeth had a tight grip on 
my under-lip to keep me from joining with them. The situa- 
tion was an exceedingly pained, not to say a strained one, for 
what appeared to be several minutes, when Peter Snyder, a 
young ** Sub '* on the fire department of the city, a good- 
natured, care-free chap, whom everybody called ** Pete," went 
up to the man holding the saw. 

** Cime that,** he said, gruffly; "77/ git that k^d oufn 
there V perish with him! " 

Not another word was spoken; but all looked at Pete 
in amazement. We all thought he would surely be killed, and 
held our breath as he calmly sawed away at that thick, hard 
plank, expecting at every stroke of the saw to see the huge 
mass of brick that hung totteringly above him fall and crush 
him to death. But at last the sharp teeth of the saw had eaten 
through that beam, and the boy was free ! 

Never shall I forget the shouts of joy that leaped from 
the throats of the throng as Pete lifted the almost lifeless child 
out of the hole which we all thought must be the place of his 
death. I can hear them ringing yet. I never shout nor make 
demonstrations on occasions like that. I simply can't do it! 
It is a physical impossibility. I hurried away to the office, 
wiping genuine tears from my eyes. What I had witnessed was 
well worth those tears — aye, and oceans more! 

Welshones' story of that rescue is a classic. But I have 
lost the copy of it I had saved, and, so far, have been unable to 

--45 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

find another. Poor St. George! None could better touch 
the heart through the pen than he! 

** Pete, the Volunteer," still lives. The City Councils 
honored him with a gold medal of merit, and to-day he is one 
of the City of Pittsburgh's fire department chiefs, with head- 
quarters at Twenty-four engine house, Wilmot Street, loved 
and respected by the whole city. The boy? I do not know 
what became of him. I know Peter Snyder saved him from 
that yawning pit. That is enough for this tale. 




46 



HO, DAR! YOU 'RASTUS JOHNSING! 



HO, DAR! YOU 'RASTUS JOHNSING! 

Ho, dar ! you 'Rastus Johnsing ! 

Don' hoi' yo' haid s' high ! 

'Cause you's bin 'lected Bishop, 

Dar haint no reason why 

Yo' eyes mus' be 

Etu'nally 

Fixed on de hebenly sky ! 

I's proud you's got de la'nin' — 

You studied long an' well; 

An' dar's none lubs you bettah, 

Ner none moah glad ter tell 

How sma't you is 

In 'Rithmatiz; 

An' how you read an' spell. 

You know de Bible perfec' ; 

You sing an' preach an' pray 
Much loudah dan de pa'son 
I hea'd las' Sabbath day; 
But, honey, kin 
You entah in 
De Gol'n Gates dat way? 

— 49 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

De people crowd eroun' you, 

All eagah fer yo' smile, 
An' bow an' scrape an' flattah, 
Yo' f avohs to beguile ; 
But once you fall. 
Den one an' all 
Would run f uni you er mile. 

So, take yo' pore ol' Anty's 

Advice, fer once, an' be 
Yo'se'f widout no trimmin's; 
Yo' way den you will see 
Bof true an' cleah ; 
An' you will heah 
No moah complaints f 'um me ! 

F ALL the army of big-feeling mortals the good 
Lord allows to walk His footstool, the newly- 
elected negro Bishop leads the van. It is a won- 
der some of his ilk do not burst, so swelled with 
importance are they. 
About fifteen years ago, among my assignments as a news- 
gatherer, one afternoon, was an annual meeting of the Pitts- 
burgh Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. 
Securing enough data for a ** stick or so '* of matter, I left 
the meeting and came down street to take a car to cover another 

— 50 — 




THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

assignment. It was fully ten minutes before the car came 
along, and, the weather being pretty cold, I tramped back and 
forth to keep my blood circulating freely. Standing in a door- 
way, so bundled up that only her eyes and nose were exposed, 
was an old negress. As I passed, she muttered to herself : 

" Ho, dar! you ! Don' you hoi' yo' haid s' 

high 's all dat! 'Cause you bin 'lected Bishop o' dis heah 
Confer'nce, haint no reason why you s'u'd keep yo' eyes gazin' 
on de hebenly sky, all de time! " 

Wondering to whom the old aunty was addressing her 
remarks, I let my gaze follow hers across the street, and there, 
swinging down the sidewalk, with all the dignity his office 
could inspire, came the Bishop who addressed the meeting I 
had just left. Indeed, he looked, as no doubt he felt himself 
to be — every inch a Bishop; and, togged out in bran-new 
ecclesiastical garb, he certainly cut some figure as he passed 
down the thoroughfare in which, in nearly every house, lived 
negroes. The Bishop was alone, and evidently in a hurry to 
catch a train at Union Station, for he walked rapidly, head up, 
eyes on the sky, and apparently oblivious of the gaping inter- 
est his presence was arousing among the residents crowding 
nearly every window and doorway to see him go by. I 
watched him far down the street until he disappeared. All 
that time the old negress kept her eyes on him, and her tongue 
wagging alternately encomiums and advice. 

" Do you know the Bishop, Aunty? " I asked, as my 
car hove in sight. 

" Shoah, I does, chile! " said she, kindly. " I nu'sed dat 

— 51 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

man w'en he wuz 'nly a liT, wee baby! He's a powerful 
sma't man; but Tse erfraid hes haid's bin tu'ned by bein' 
'lected Bishop! " 

Then I ran for my car; and, getting aboard, jotted down 
on some "copy " paper, a few Hnes of " Ho, Dar! You 
'Rastus Johnsing! " I know the real name of the Bishop. 
It is not Johnsing ; but that will do very well for my purpose. 




— 52 — 



LITTLE-BOY-LEN. 




'Little Boy Len, Disconsolate, 
Wonders and Grumbles at His Fate. " 



LITTLE-BOY-LEN. 

Little-Boy-Len, disconsolate, 
Wonders and grumbles at his fate — 
Why must he all the long, long day 
Stay at home by himself while they, 
The older boys, down at the stream 
Fish and swim where the waters gleam ? 

How well he knows their bounding joy 

When like a shadow swift and coy 

A finny form, to tug a line. 

Shoots from some drooping rock or vine ! 

And oh, the rapture when a fish 

Is landed with a circling " swish ! " 

The ripples' flow he seems to hear ; 
To catch the bird-songs sweet and clear, 
And scent the mint that grows around 
The old grist-mill whose whirr profound, 
From early morn till dewy night. 
Its beauty adds to things of sight. 

Little-Boy-Len ! His inmost soul 

Revolts to think how those boys stole 

Away and left him snug a-bed 

When dawn the ruddy East o'erspread. 

" 'Cause I am 'nly six," grieves he, 

" They think I'd drowned; but they'd jis' see 

— 55 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

" I'd not! 'N' I c'n fish 'n' swim 
'S good 's them; fer Uncle Jim 
Teached me jis' how t' bait a hook, 
'N' swimmin' 's easy 's t' look! 
ril jis' ast mother. Her, I know, 
'LI not deny t' let me go ! " 

Little-Boy-Len ! His mother kind 
Tells him he must not fret nor mind — 
" You are too little, dear, to roam 
About the creek, so far from home. 
Be a good boy, and when you 're ten 
I'll let you fish all you want, then." 

Little-Boy-Len ! Hope he has still — 

A neighbor lad has come from mill ! . . 

"TIV boys a-ketchin' anything?" 

" Yes ; . . Silversides . . each had a string- 

(Such conversation passed, I ken.) 

Swiftly runs the Little-Boy-Len, 

And cries aloud expectantly: 

" Oh, mother ! mother ! do let me 

G' down't th' crick ! . ." Then in a shout : 

" Boys jis' jerkin' th' Silksides out!" 

Since then the years have fled like dew. 

But " Silky " sticks to that boy true. 



56 




THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

|ID you ever catch a Silverside? 

Perhaps you do not know the game Httle fish by 
that name. The encyclopedias refer to it as a 
genus of fishes of the family Aiher'imdae, related 
to the Mullets which have a broad, silvery band 
along each flank. The genus comprises many species which 
abound both in America and in Europe. Those of the United 
States are called ** Silversides " and ** Smelts " and ** Pesce 
Rey.*' They are good food-fish when not too small. 

Well, three good-sized strings of those little fishes were 
responsible for the nicknaming of a six-year-old boy, and for 
my writing, incidentally, ** Little-Boy-Len." I think I was 
about eighteen years old, and was jogging along home from 
mill, one bright, sunny morning in May, driving an old, gray 
mare we called Kit, which was lazily drawing a light spring- 
wagon comfortably filled with milling. Just as I passed the 
house of our nearest neighbors, the drowse into which I had 
fallen was broken by a sharp, squeaky, little voice. 
** Hin! hoy, Hin! " it called. 

"Whoa, Kit! ** I said, turning in the direction of the 
voice, and the mare stopped instantly. There, like a cat to a 
wire-screen, hung Uttle-Boy-Len — that was not his real name, 
but near enough — on the high board-fence in front of his 
home, with bare head and feet, his mouth screwed up and 
one eye shut because of the sun's bright glare. 

** Wuz you down 't th* crick? " he asked without further 
preliminaries. 

**Yes; I am on the way back from Hunter's Mill, now. 
I " 

— 57 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

" 'D y' see Bub, 'n' Al, 'n' 'Liss (his brother Sherman 
and my brothers, Alpheus and Ulysses) down 'ere? *' he broke 
in eagerly. 

" Yes " 

" Wuz they fishin? '* 

" Yes." 

** Wher? " quick as a flash. 

" They were on the apron of the dam when I saw them,'* 
I said, smiling at the boy's eagerness and the avidity with 
which he devoured what information he was getting. 

** Wuz they l^eichm anything? " he asked, and awaited 
my reply with bated breath. 

" Oh, yes ; they each had quite a string of Silversides 

and " I intended to tell him the boys had also caught a 

lot of Chubs and Sunfish; but he did not wait. Instead, with 
a little yelp of delight, he dropped to the ground, sheer as a 
plummet, tore open the yard gate weighted shut with worn-out 
plow-points hung on a chain, flew through the opening and 
around the house, his chubby bare feet patting a tattoo on the 
hard clay walk as he ran. The gate banged after him, and 
I, laughing at his sudden flight, drove on. 

Half an hour later, having put away my milling and 
watered and fed the old mare, I was going into the house 
to dinner, when the boy's father, who hugely enjoyed a good 
joke or story, came across his garden to the lane which ran 
between the two properties. 

"Say, Hen!" he called. " What'd you do t' our 
Len? " 

— 58 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

" Why — nothing that I know of/' I replied, wondering 
what was up. 

" YVe set the boy plumb crazy! '* the old man cried, a 
merry twinkle dancing in his eyes. ** Y* tol* him, he says, th' 
boys *re ketchin* lots o' fish down*t th* crick, 'n* 't's set him 
clean daffy. Our Sherman 'n' your two boys went fishin' 
'arly this mornin', leavin' Len asleep *n bed — run off 'n' left 
him, he thinks — 'n* he's been fussin' 'roun' ever sence he got 
up, pesterin' his mother t' let him g' down 'n' fin' 'em. O' 
course, she wouldn't let him go, 'cause he's s' little! He 
knowed you wuz down t' mill, 'n' wuz watchin' all forenoon 
fer y' t' git back. So, when y' tol' him th' boys wuz ketchin' 
lots o' fish, he thought sure his mother'd let him g' down to 
'em, 'n' he run tearm int' the house wher' his mother 'n' Mis' 
Hirdman wuz quiltin', belted int' th' quiltin' frames, nearly up- 
settin' 'em, 'n' yelled like 'n Ingin: 'Mother, mother! — my 
Cod, mother! — le' me g' down't th' crick! Bub, 'n' Al, 'n' 
'Liss 's jis' a-/er^rn' th' Sillj^sides out! " 

Little-Boy-Len (that sobriquet, or pet-name, was shaped 
entirely by my own fancy) , did not get to go fishing that day, 
but he got the nickname, ** Silky," which sticks to him yet. 
The story was too good for either his or our family to keep, 
and soon had gone the rounds of the neighborhood. Some 
one started to call the little fellow " Silky," the boys took it 
up, and so it remains. < 



— 59 — 



TALE OF A QUAINT FOLK-BALLAD. 




TALE OF A QUAINT FOLK-BALLAD. 

LONG in the early nineties there gathered nightly 
at the Pittsburgh Press Club a coterie of news- 
paper men of a type pecuHarly its own. Five of 
that special group are dead — Stephen Hornett, 
George Welshones, Clarence Bixby, George Petitt 
and Leon Bancroft. They were as bright a set of news-handlers 
as Pittsburgh ever saw, or probably will see. All were high- 
strung, full of what is called artistic temperament, and each a 
splendid entertainer, according to his bent. Among the most 
brilliant was Stephen Hornett, familiarly known as ** Steady," 
because of his steady propensity to lose at cards (usually 
faro). He was sporting editor of the old Pittsburgh Times, 
and an acknowledged authority on prize-ring, racing and base- 
ball matters. He had fads, of course, like all brilliant people, 
one of which was quaint, pretty bits of verse or song. This 
brings me to my tale. 

" Steady " roomed in an Irish section of the city, and 
one night sang for a small group at the Club what he called 
** No More Am I a Blooming Maid," an Irish folk-ballad 
he had learned from an old woman who lived near where he 
roomed. There were two or three members of the Club who 
played the piano well, and sly, old Steve privately practiced 
the singing of the ballad with one of them until they had every- 
thing down pat, accompaniment and all. I was one of the 

favored few who heard Hornett sing that ballad in the Press 
Club ; and let me add, one of the favored few who ever heard 
him sing it at all. He only sang on rare occasions, and never 

— 63 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

before a promiscuous crowd. Sensitive and shy as a school- 
girl, in such matters, his auditors had to be tuned just right 
before he would attempt to sing for them. 

It was after ** 30," about one o'clock in the morning, just 
at the close of a hard. Fall rain. About half a dozen mem- 
bers had got through their work and come to the Club. Not 
having worked that day, I had been at the Club all evening, 
and was half asleep on a couch in the library, which was next 
the music-room, when Hornett's accompanist struck the open- 
ing bars of the introduction to the ballad. Sweet and crooning 
like, they thrilled me wonderfully. Wide awake, then, I got 
up from the couch and started to go into the music-room to 
better hear the playing. At the door I stopped. Hornett had 
begun to sing, his rich barytone voice in perfect harmony 
with the accompaniment. Music always sounds better on 
water or during damp weather ; but the condition of the atmos- 
phere was not responsible for the exquisite rendering of that 
peculiarly beautiful ballad. Stephen Hornett was the master 
spirit and artisan of it all. Here are the words he sang : 

" No more am I a blooming maid, 
Dreaming in the flow'ry shade ; 
My youth and bloom are all decayed. 
Sk'deen, mavourneen, slon ! 

" Shule, shule, shule, agra ! 
Time can only ease my woe, 
Since my true love from me did go. 
Sk'deen, mavourneen, slon! 

— 64 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

^ *' I will sell my rack, I will sell my reel, 

When flax is spun I will sell my wheel 
To buy my love a sword of steel. 
Sk'deen, mavourneen, slon ! 

" Shule, shule, etc. 

" I wish I was on Brandin's Hill, 
It is there Fd sit and cry my fill, 
And ev'ry tear would turn a mill. 
Sk'deen, mavourneen, slon! 

" Shule, shule, etc. 

" I will dye my petticoat — dye it red, 
And around this world I will beg my bread, 
Till all my friends will wish me dead. 
Sk'deen, mavourneen, slon ! 

" Shule, shule, etc.'' 

I stood in the doorway until the rendering of the ballad 
was ended, but did not join in the applause which followed. I 
could not, somehow. It seemed to me like sacrilege to ap- 
plaud — in the vociferous manner those fellows did — a thing 
so exquisitely beautiful. Instead, I went up to the singer, and, 
taking him by the hand, said : 

** Stephen, that was wonderful — immense ! Where did 
you run across it? And won't you please sing it again? '* 

— 65 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

The others joined me in urging for a second singing of the 
ballad, or at least part of it; but Hornett refused absolutely to 
sing another note that night, and started to go home. I caught 
him in the hallway. 

" Steady," I said, ** will you let me have the words of 
that song? '* 

** I will not, Brownfield! " he told me, pointedly. ** I 
would not let the Angel Gabriel have them! " And he stalked 
out as though greatly offended at my presumption. 

But some days later he gave me a copy of the words, and 
several times sang me the tune in the inimitable way he could 
do it. Kindly assisted by Professor John Gernert, of Pitts- 
burgh, in the arrangement of the harmony of the piano ac- 
companiment, I recently tried to reproduce on paper the ballad 
as Hornett sang, and his accompanist played. My effort, with 
Hornett's favorite stanza, appears on opposite page. 

It is a mighty big undertaking for one so amateurish in 
music as I am to coax into cold notes and other music char- 
acters, any composition entirely from memory, and particularly 
is the task a difficult one, trying to keep the composition ex- 
actly in line with the manner others have sung and played it. 
But I wanted the composition badly; so, late one night I 
slipped down from my den to the piano, with a staff I had 
made myself, picked out the air of the ballad, and wrote it 
in what I thought was the key of E flat. As I did so, I 
seemed to hear old ** Steady's '* voice singing and his ac- 
companist playing as plainly as I did that night — or morning, 
rather — at the Press Club. I wrote the music in two-four 

— 66 — 



Moderate. 



No More Am I A Blooming Maid. 



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-—67 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

time, and took it to Professor Gernert for help. He said the 
music was in C minor, and liked it very much; but suggested 
that common time would be better, and that the key of 
G minor would be more suitable for the ordinary voice. 
He wrote the score out that way, and I took it home and 
copied it as here produced, the expression marks being almost 
entirely my idea. 

" The composition is your own," Professor Gernert said, 
as I left him. " I simply helped you to perfect the harmony." 
And I felt very proud. 

If the words, or the music of the ballad was ever pub- 
lished it must have been in a very obscure, private way, for 
I have searched in vain for either. But it really does not mat- 
ter. I have my old friend, " Steady '* Hornett's version, and 
that is all-sufficient for me. He said ** Sk'deen, mavourneen, 
slon! ** is Irish for " My darling, my loved one; health to 
you! " and ** Shule, shule, shule, agra! '* means " Walk, walk, 
walk, my love! " Again, it does not matter. Some of the 
words may be the coinage of Hornett on hearing the old Irish 
woman sing the ballad. If such is true, they are more valuable 
to m€ than were they pure " Auld Sod ** dialect. 



6S 



ANOTHER QUAINT FOLK-BALLAD TALE. 




ANOTHER QUAINT FOLK-BALLAD TALE. 

P IN Preston County, West Virginia, in the heart 
of Chestnut Ridge Mountains, there lived, more 
than forty years ago, a loony old character who 
earned a scant living by hunting, trapping and 
the cutting of hoop-poles. I never savyr the man; 
but during my boyhood I heard many tales of his queer doings 
and sayings. Among the boys who attended the same country 
school I did was one Frank Blaney, a stout, good-natured, 
fun-loving, devil-may-care sort of fellow, who had spent 
months near the old mountaineer's home, where his father, 
Aaron Blaney, was getting out steam-boat timber. Frank was 
a good story-teller, could sing like a bird, and often entertained 
us boys with tales of the old hoop-pole cutter. He also taught 
us a quaint — for all of its silliness — ballad which he said the 
old fellow claimed he composed, both words and music. The 
old chap called the ballad *' It Rained a Mist." The words 
ran: 

'' It rained a mist, it rained a mist, 
It rained throughout the town; 
And all the boys about the town 

Went out to toss their balls, balls, balls; 
Went out to toss their balls. 

" Sometimes they tossed their balls too high, 

And then again too low; 
A little boy gave his ball a toss. 

And in the Jew's garden it did go, go, go; 
And in the Jew's garden it did go. 

— 71 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS, 

" The Jew's daughter came out, all dressed in silk 

And robes of richest charm: 
* Come in, come, my poor little boy, 

Come in and get your ball, ball, ball ; 
Come in and get your ball ; ' 

" She took him by the lily-white hand, 

And through the garden they went 
Down in the cellar, beneath the castle. 

Where no one could hear him lament, lament ; 
Where no one could hear him lament. 

" She pinned him to a napkin white — 

Oh, wasn't that a sin ? — 
And called for a basin as bright as gold 

To take his heart's blood in, in, in ; 
To take his heart's blood in. 

" ' Go place my Bible at my head. 

My prayer-book at my feet; 
And if my school-mates inquire for me. 

Just tell them that I'm asleep, 'sleep, 'sleep ; 
Just tell them that I'm asleep. 

" ' Go place my prayer-book at my feet, 

My Bible at my head ; 
And if my parents inquire for me. 

Just tell them I am dead, dead, dead ; 
Just tell them I am dead.' " 

— 72 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

I can see Frank as he sang that ballad for us boys, hud- 
dled around him on the school grounds, and hear his clear 
voice plaintively droning out the melody in imitation of the old 
mountaineer, something like this : 



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How impressionable childhood is! And how those im- 
pressions stick throughout life! The verse of the ballad is 
practically doggerel ; but we boys thought it fine, because, per- 
haps, of the taking of the boy's heart's blood in a basin as bright 
as gold, by a Jew's daughter, down in a cellar beneath a castle. 
The tune, itself, however, I still think quaint and pretty. I 
give it here for that reason, as well as to round out this little 
tale. 



— 73 — 



A DREAM OF YOUTH. 




"Lonely I Sigh for The Days That Are Fled — 
Days of The Loved Ones so Long Ago Dead. 



A DREAM OF YOUTH. 

Tall grew the grass where the buttercups blow ; 
Sweet were the lilies whose fragrance, I know, 
Nature distils but to gladden the souls 
Of the young whom coyly thus she enrolls 
Among her lovers, all ardent and true 
As crystals ashine in drops of the dew. 
Fresh blew the breeze through the tall, waving grain 
Made bright by the kiss of soft Summer rain- 
Rain which the Earth gladly drank till the flow'rs 
Lifted their heads in the woodlands fair bow'rs, 
Happy, it seemed, in their innocence wild. 
Simply in giving their lives to a child. 
Clear flowed the brook as it murmured along— 

None save a youth knows the joy of its song ! 

Whirling and dancing as onward it flowed 
Others to join in its pilgrimage road. 

Blest in the freedom of boyhood, atune. 
Glad sang my heart with the fullness of June. 
And when the sun had gone down in the West, 
Gorgeous in crimson and gold, to his rest, 
Long would I roam over meadow and hill, 
Night-beauties thronging my soul to its fill. 
Softly the sough of the wind far away 
Fell on my ear like sea-billows at play. 

— 77 — 




THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

Far gleamed the stars in their great trackless flight ; 
Calm shone the moon with her silvery light. . . . 
Quickly, yes, quickly, the years crowding come, 
Mingled with sorrow and Life's busy hum. 
Lonely I sigh for the days that are fled — 
Days of the loved ones so long ago dead. 
Sadly I weep for them, vainly I cry ; 
Like a last leaf I must wither and die. 



|T SEEMS hardly possible that a mere boy would 
write a poem of this nature. One would look for 
thoughts of the future from a youthful courter of 
the Muses, instead of backward musings. I think 
I was about fifteen when I wrote ** A Dream of 
Youth." What actually inspired the effort, I have forgotten; 
but it must have been because, along then, I was beginning 
to appreciate William Cullen Bryant's ** Thanatopsis,*' and 
like productions. At any rate, I was full to overflowing with 
just such feelings and sentiments, and thus got rid of some of 
them. 

I sent the poem to William H. Miller, then Editor of 
the American Standard, a weekly newspaper, published at 
Uniontown, Pa. Since then I have had miles of articles pub- 
lished — some in magazines of note — but largely in daily and 
weekly newspapers; but all the thrills I have subsequently ex- 
perienced, if put into one, would be mild, it seems to me, com- 
pared with what I felt on seeing and reading in print that one 
composition. 

— 78 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

It was at school, I remember, that I first saw and read 
in print the poem. One of the boys — he has been dead some 
years, poor fellow! — showed it to me in the Standard. It was 
during afternoon recess, and I shall never forget the expression 
on his face as he pointed out the verse to me. Whether it 
was envy or praise, I never quite knew, and never tried to 
learn. The fact that my poem had been published was all- 
sufficient, so far as I was concerned. Envy nor praise at that 
juncture had any effect whatever on me. I must have read 
that poem a thousand times. Then I got several more raptur- 
ous thrills on seeing the poem copied in other journals. Hon- 
estly, I think I would not have traded places then with 
Longfellow or Bryant. Gee! can't a boy appreciate things? 
I would give ten years of my life to be able to feel as I felt 
then. No; I take that back. A boy's pain is just as keen as 
his pleasure. 

This poem, of course, is crude and amateurish; but it 
isn't so bad for a boy. I found it in a scrap-book not long 
ago, and give it here rather as a curiosity. 



— 79 



AT THE BALL. 



AT THE BALL. 

Supper over, a half hour free, 
Gentlemen take the liberty 
Among themselves to congregate. 
Discuss important news of late, 
The clubs, the town, the freshest joke, 
To sip their wines, to chaff, to smoke. 
Explode their lordly views, and trace 
The future of the populace. 

Ladies their toilets rearrange, 
A little gossiping exchange. 
And little jealousies confess 
In spleenish comments on the dress 
Of the fair rival who has won 
Some laurels of a race begun. 
A little storm of frowns and riles ; 
The music opens — all is smiles. 

^HIS little skit was written in December, 1888. 
I was doing some work for the Pittsburgh Press, 
then called " The Penny Press,'* I believe, and 
was assigned to write up a swell ball, in the East 
End. Not having a suit of evening clothes of 
my own, and not caring to go to the expense of hiring one for 
that occasion, I covered the assignment dressed in the same 
suit I wore while doing regular work. It was good goods, 
almost new and fit well, so I did not worry about my clothes. 
I had done considerable newspaper work previous to this, 
but had never before attempted to write up a high-toned social 

— 83 — 




THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

affair. The ball, as such functions were then called, was given 
by the wife of a rich Pittsburgh banker in honor of her niece, 
who was from Philadelphia on a visit. 

I was somewhat worried at the outset as to just how to 
proceed so as to both get my data and not make any blunders. 
Finally I wrote a neat note to the hostess, explaining that I 
was a reporter, would only detain her a few minutes, and 
asking for the data necessary to give her affair a good send-off. 
This I gave to the door-man who, when I told him my business, 
took me into a cozy little room while he carried my message 
to his mistress. 

Supper was not over when I got there, and I had to wait 
at least an hour before the hostess got opportunity to see me. 
But the time passed very pleasantly, what with watching the 
guests, listening to rather interesting conversations, having to 
do so or else close my eyes and ears, and enjoying some fine 
cigars and two or three glasses of excellent champagne, which 
the door-man insisted I should partake of. At length the 
hostess came to me, graciously excused herself for having de- 
tained me so long, gave me a list of her most important guests, 
described the gowns worn by a lot of the women, doing all she 
could to help me. 

Well, I gave the ball a bang-up send off in The Press 
next day ; but I could not get rid of what I had seen and heard 
there so easily. The remembrance of such kept pestering my 
brain until I wrote the little satire, " At the Ball,*' a week or 
two later. It was published in The Press at the time; but it 
is doubtful if anyone besides myself ever suspected why I 
came to write it. 

— 84 — 



BILLY BARTON'S WOOING. 




" At de or F'onl Gate, in de Ebentide." 

BILLY BARTON'S WOOING. 

At de ol' font gate, in de ebentide, 

Wen de face o' de moon wuz hid 
By sof ', fleecy clouds, flyin' high an' wide. 

An' de chant o' de katydid 
Mak my fon' heahrt yeahn ter enfol' my love, 

An' fo' jes one kiss I prayed, 
Wid eyes es bright es de stahs erbove. 

She glance at me an' said : 

" Tak yo' ahm erway, Mistah Bahton ! 

Yo' know we's not ingaged ! 
An' if Ma'ma sees you, sahtin 

An' suah, she'll be inraged! 
No, you mus'n't kiss me, honey ! — 
Not f o' bahles an' bahles o' money ! 

Don' tease me so ! 

Hit's wrong, you know ! 
Mistah Bahton, tak yo' ahm erway ! " 

— 87—- 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS, 

Den de pale moon speed f'um behin' de cloud, 

An' de rays o' silber fell 
O'e' de face o' my love, so faih an' proud. 

An' er tale ter me dey tell, 
Dat mak me bol', an' my ahm moah strong 

Eroun' her fo'm ter stray — 
In her heahrt I see wuz Love's ol', sweet song; 

But still ter me she say : 

*' Tak yo' ahm erway, Mistah Bahton ! 

Yo' know we's not ingaged ! 
An' if Ma'ma sees you, sahtin 

An' suah, she'll be inraged ! 
No, you mus'n't kiss me, honey ! — 
Not f o' bahles an' bahles o' money ! 

Don' tease me so ! 

Hit's wrong, you know ! 
Mistah Bahton, tak yo' ahm erway ! " 

Since de Muddah Ebe in de Gahden dwelt 

Wid Adam, so long ergo. 
Her daughtehs, everyone, hev felt 

In dooty boun' ter show 
Dat dey mus' flihrt fo' er li'l' while — 

Wid de heahrts o' men mus' play — 
So, my love look up at me wid er smile, 

An' I yeahr her sof 'ly say : 

" Tak yo' ahm erway, Mistah Bahton ! 
Yo' know we's not ingaged ! 

— 88 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

An' if Ma'ma sees you, sahtin 

An' suah, she'll be inraged ! 
No, you mus'n't kiss me, honey ! — 
Not fo' bahles an' bahles o' money ! 

Well — one li'l' one — (m-m!) 
But jes in fun — (m-m!) — 
Billy Bahton! — O, you rascal man!'' 




ILLY BARTON'S WOOING " has had an in- 
teresting, but rather disastrous history. It was 
intended, o^ginall5^ as the words of a song I 
composed some years ago. I, and a lot of my 
friends who heard it sung and played, believed 
the song a winner; but several hard-hearted publishers thought 
otherwise. So Billy's story of his love-making has not received 
the plaudits of the song-loving public its author enthusiastically 
hoped it would. But the only adverse criticism of it has been 
that it is too ** classy " — whatever that is — and, as there is a 
pretty little human-interest episode connected with its composi- 
tion, I include it in this collection. 

Because some reader might wish to know how the music 
of the song runs, it is here appended (see pages 90-91 ). 

It was a soft, moon-lit evening, toward the last of August. 
Except for a few white, fleecy clouds, soaring Eastwardly and 
very high above the earth, the sky was clear, the air balmy and 
fragrant with tree and flower odors from old Allegheny 
City Central park. There was a meeting of the Board of 
Trustees of the Western Theological Seminary to settle some 



— 89 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS, 



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— 01 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

important controversy confronting the affairs of the Seminary; 
and I was assigned to report the result. The chapel is located 
in Ridge Avenue, facing the park; and the meeting's being a 
star-chamber affair — ** no reporters admitted," being among 
the orders issued to the janitor who met me at the door — I 
took a walk in the park to smoke and pass the hour I had to 
wait. 

After a while I sat down on a park bench, near a rustic 
house, located on a slight rise of the ground; and, presently, 
from the entrance to the rustic house, I heard a ** real South'n '* 
female voice say: 

** Tak yo' ahm erway, Mistah ! You know we's not 

ingaged! An' if my Mama'd see you ! " 

** Nevah min' yo' Mamma, honey — shes not heah! " the 
inale voice coaxed. 

Well, they scrapped away in darkey love-making style, 
until finally the girl gave a little smothered squawk, and I 
knew Billy had won out, all right. I heard her call him 
" Billy." His last name sounded like Bahton; but I was not 
sure. At any rate, the incident struck me as both humorous 
and romantic, and I let my imagination run riot, somewhat, 
in the writing of the poem. 



— 92 — 



WISDOM COUPLETS. 



WISDOM COUPLETS. 

Who cheats me once, let Shame's curse on him be ; 
If twice he cheat me, let it fall on me. 



A fool considers money only pelf; 

The wise man smiles and gathers it himself. 



For vinegar, in pickles, there's a place ; 
But it should never linger in a face. 



A sheep is social, and a goat as well ; 

Yet, mix the two, and there's — a tale to tell. 



Clear well your vision ere you judgment pass 
Your bias may be smudge upon your glass. 



Money in hands which always use it just, 
Is never reckoned merely drossy dust. 



Hearts that seem lightest often carry woe : 
Like mighty ships the fires lie far below. 



Hail to the man who fights Life's battles brave ! 
Nor worry much for him beyond the grave. 



You cannot eat your cake and keep it, too ; 
Yet there are those who strive such feats to do. 



— 95 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

Honor meets Honor on a common plane ; 
While Error sulks or seeks her own domain. 



Love will not live on kisses, nor a heart 
Wax warm and tender 'neath a galling smart. 



Meet Luck half way along Life's shifting road 
Fate scorns the coward, but respects a goad. 



Were men all angels, women, in despair, 
Would seek of devils soon their lots to share. 




It matters not what hue the world he paints, 
A man expects his wife among the saints. 

|HE foregoing " Wisdom Couplets," as I have cap- 
tioned them, have been culled from a lot of such 
effusions I have written from time to time. Some 
of them are quoted from memory, while others 
were scribbled on scraps of paper and envelopes 
recently found laid away in an old trunk. Each was prompted 
by some incident that struck me as worth noting; but what 
those incidents were, I have completely forgotten, except the 
one which inspired the writing of the first couplet given here. 
A certain man cheated me out of a lot of money — a lot for 
me to lose at the time, at least — and I said to myself: " It is 
his fault that he cheated me this time ; it will be my fault if he 
cheat me again." 

— 96 — 



FAREWELL— NOT AU REVOIR! 



FAREWELL— NOT AU REVOIR! 

" Farewell — not au revoirl " he said, 

And looked into her eyes. 
She smiled and calmly bent her head — 

His words gave no surprise. 
" Good bye — I wish you well ! " said she, 

And blandly tripped away; 
But oh, the world of misery 

Her bosom had to pay ! 

For lovers true the twain had been, 

Betrothed and constant long, 
Till slyly crept their Eden in 

A thief who stole its song, 
And in its stead left Pride and Doubt, 

A most efficient pair 
To sorely blight and put to rout 

The plans of Cupid fair. 

Weeks into months and months to years ! — 

So Time has glided by. 
Bringing content to him, while tears 

Her grief must mollify. 
He is a husband, proud and kind ; 

But she, a maiden lone. 
Scorns solace such as his to find — 

Such travesty to own. 

— 99 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

Thus oft is played the Game of Hearts- 
One faithful to the end ; 

The other mourns a day, then starts 
A new love-bow to bend. 

One bears a cross ; the other rides 
The paths of Pleasure gay. 

Why Fate so widely lots divides, 
No mortal can assay. 




— 100 — 



METAMORPHOSES. 




' ' They Marked How Swiftly Lifted She Her Head 



METAMORPHOSES. 

As the white moon the silent East o'erspread 

With brighter brightness as she cahnly rose, 
They marked how swiftly lifted she her head 

Above the dark, grim mountains, on whose brows 
A thousand weird, fantastic monsters raised, 

Like frowning giants all their battle-blades — 
A Xerxes army in array — and gazed 

Upon the peaceful tenants of the glades. 

But as she climbed the arching vault so still — 

Strange metamorphosis ! — the monsters changed 
To kindly genii, who smiled good will 

O'er all things on the earth beneath them ranged. 
And they, whose hearts had cruel quarrel torn, 

From that rapt scene a blessed precept learned : 
His jealous ire, and her reproachful scorn 

Into a flame of perfect love were turned. 

|HESE lines are a fragment from a long poem I 
wrote in my callow days — nearly thirty years ago. 
The manuscript of that prolonged, though earnest 
effort, was destroyed some fifteen years ago, when 
our old homestead, in Southern Fayette County, 
Pa., burned. I remember the lines, however, and the circum- 
stance which incited their composition. I have always had a 
penchant for what the literary fellows call ** local color,'* and 
one glorious summer evening I went out to court inspiration 

— 103 — 




THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

from the rising moon. Perched on the top rail of a worm-fence, 
my back against one of the stakes, I sat for nearly two hours 
watching the moon rise over Chestnut Ridge Mountains. Such 
a sight still fills me with rapt enthusiasm; but at that time it 
was like nectar from the gods to my ardent, impressionable 
soul. Imagine yourself, indulgent reader, on a night like that, 
in the country, miles from a railroad or village larger than a 
mere hamlet, the air as pure and fragrant as heaven can distil, 
the sky perfectly clear, the stars snow-white, myriads of insects 
singing in exact harmony around you, an occasional night- 
bird trilling a melody sweet as a seraph's song — imagine your- 
self enfolded, as it were, as I was that night, with those stu- 
pendous creations of Nature, sitting on a high hill, watching the 
moon rise over a range of tall mountains ! 

And such a moonrise! My view of it was unobstructed 
by bush or tree or object of any kind. First a faint whiteness 
tinged the Eastern horizon, low down to the crest of the moun- 
tains which showed pitch black in their darkness. Then deli- 
cate streaks of silver began shooting upward, and gradually 
the brightness along the mountain-tops grew brighter and 
brighter until the whole Eastern sky was aglow. Suddenly the 
moon seemed to shoot her great, white disc completely from 
behind the black mass of mountains, then rise so rapidly that 
I imagined I could see her moving. During that period and 
for probably half an hour or longer, every tree and bush and 
crag on the brow of the mountains, though clear and distinct 
in outline, showed so dark and grim that I pictured them to be 
an army of old Xerxes' fierce warriors, come to life, and march- 

— 104 — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS, 

ing over the mountains t;o invade and ravage our peaceful, un- 
protected country. But, as the moon climbed higher and higher 
up the still vault of the sky, the outlines of the objects on the 
mountains became softer and softer until they appeared like 
good friends, smiling down upon us. 

As I sat there my enrapture was broken by the voices of a 
rustic pair of lovers strolling by. They had evidently just 
made up a lovers* quarrel, for the male voice was declaring 
eternal abstinence from jealousy, and the female voice cooing 
its mistress* perfect bliss in the reconciliation. 

Forcibly impressed with the simile — the change of the 
imagined monsters to kindly genii and the making up of the 
lovers — I went home and let my muse create the metamorphoses 
portrayed in the lines given at the head of this article. 



105 — 



THE CANDIDATE. 



THE CANDIDATE. 

Who is it comes with smiles so bland 
And grasps me tightly by the hand, 
As though I were the Noble Grand ? 
The candidate. 

Who is it comes my work to block, 
And praises high my barn and stock. 
My house, my yard, my garden- walk? 
The candidate. 

Who tells my wife, right to her face. 
She's " beautiful and full of grace," 
Until she scarcely knows her place ? 
The candidate. 

Who says our children " are the beat," 
And kisses baby, shy and sweet, 
Until they all are at his feet? 
The candidate. 

Who claims that Fm the only man 
In my whole section whom he can 
Intrust to carry out his plan ? 
The candidate. 

Who'll cross the street his " friend " to see, 
Though mud and mire be to the knee, 
But, when elected, don't know me? 
The candidate. 

— 109 — 




THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

Who, when defeated, home he goes, 
And sadly sheds his Sunday clothes. 
And swears : " I'll quite the biz, by Mose ! " ? 
The candidate. 

AND I DATES — the same, yesterday, to-day and 
to-morrow — have always been interesting to me 
whatever the party they have been affihated with. 
Up in " Old Immortal Springhill,'* — so named 
years ago by an old Pinole of mine, John D. 
Scott, who said ** the chickens crowed Democracy '* there — 
candidates, in the Spring of 1884, were as thick as flies in 
harvest. Not only were there three or four candidates for 
State Legislature and almost every county office, but each 
township office had several aspirants. I was home from a six- 
months' term of school-teaching in West Virginia, and took 
considerable interest in the campaign. I came in close con- 
tact with most of the candidates, and thus had opportunity to 
note their characteristic peculiarities, which I found to be pretty 
similar each to the others. 

About that time William H. Cooke, for several terms 
Superintendent of the public schools of Fayette County, took 
editorial charge of the Uniontown, Pa., Genius of Libert;^, a 
rock-ribbed exponent of Democracy, and he asked me to cor- 
respond for it. ** Write on any subject you care to," he told 
me; and one day I wrote " The Candidate," which Mr. Cooke 
published in his paper, and sent me a letter, praising the con- 
tribution highly, and thanking me for it. The poem was copied 
quite extensively at the time. 

— 110 — 



HERE'S TO OLD PITTSBURGH! 



HERE'S TO OLD PITTSBURGH! 

From North, from South, from East, from West, 

Ay ! from the whole world round ! 
We come at Father Pitt's behest. 

Each filled with joy profound, 
To celebrate befittingly 

His honored Natal Day. 
Then here's to you, and here's to me ! — 

Hip! hip! hooray! hooray! 

Here's to old Pittsburgh ! Glad are we to be 

Where forges ring 

And toilers sing 
In tuneful harmony ! 
Here's to old Pittsburgh, the workshop of the world ! 

Where skill and brawn 

Count for the man. 
And Worth's flag is unfurled! 

Our city's fame is spread afar, 

We fear no rivals bold ; 
Yet unto none is there a bar 

Who trade with us would hold. 
In education and the arts 

We proudly lead the way ; 
We rule supreme in all the marts — 

Hip! hip! hooray! hooray! 

—lis — 



THE LORELEI AND OTHER POEMS. 

On fairer maids the sun ne'er shone ; 

Nor wives, nor mothers true, 
Nor sweethearts we so fondly own, 

Than bless both me and you. 
They cheer our hearts like founts of wine 

Along Life's toilsome way. 
Then, here's to yours, and here's to mine ! — 

Hip ! hip ! hooray ! hooray ! 

|HESE are the words I wrote for the march-song, 
** Here's To Old Pittsburgh! '* which was pub- 
Hshed during the Sesqui-Centennial celebration 
(1908) of the birth of Pittsburgh (November 
25, 1758). Prof. Albert D. Liefield composed 

the music, and it was at his request the words were written. 

The song was favorably received, and made quite a hit, 

locally. The song is emblematic of the spirit of the occasion 

which prompted its production. 




THE END. 



— 114 — 



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One copy del. to Cat. Div. 






